Student Question
What does "the high towers of the gods" symbolize in "By the Waters of Babylon"?
Quick answer:
John uses the water of an unnamed river to travel from his "primitive" village in the American Midwest to an abandoned New York City. The story is told by John, a young man who lives with his tribe of people on the shores of a great, unnamed river. As John tells his story, he sits on the riverbank while his father paddles a raft downriver toward New York City. His father is hoping to find some useful possessions that will benefit the people back home. John's people do not have many possessions; they mostly live off the land and each other. So it is more than just curiosity that draws John to New York.
When John, the story's narrator, speaks of the high towers of the gods, he is referring to New York City's skyscrapers. He states:
Everywhere there are the ruins of the high towers of the gods.
Although the story was written in 1937, the description of New York City is familiar to us because it is still a metropolis dominated by skyscrapers.
John, however, lives a simple life in a post-apocalyptic world where a nuclear war long ago destroyed industrial civilization, and he knows nothing of New York. He and his people can only imagine that the beings that built this great, now dead, city must have been gods.
John has used a pole to paddle a raft down a river to this city. This river is probably the Hudson, and the "bitter" waters he doesn't want to get swept up into the salt waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
As John explores the city of the gods, he realizes that it was humans that built it. This is a stunning revelation to him, but it fills him with hope that one day his people can rebuild civilization.
John is unreflectively certain that the civilization represented by New York City in 1937 is superior to the "primitive" society that he and his people live in. He now knows that humans built this grand city, but he never questions whether doing so was a good idea or not. He simply admires it and aspires to emulate the people who created it.
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